Dressy But Casual
By creating jewelry, Leah adds another brushstroke to an artistic life she has already led as a photographer, vocalist, and pianist. She was working for a television station and attending graduate school at Arizona State when she met Eric, a native Texan. They married and moved to Dallas.

While Eric began commuting to teach broadcast news at an area university, Leah filled her time with an art metals/jewelry class at Brookhaven College, located in Farmers Branch. She soon completed her first work--a copper necklace in a delicate Greek key design.

Although she praises the instruction, Leah didn't sign up for more classes. "I learned a lot of the basics," she says. "I learned more of how to work with metal, but I wanted to develop the jewelry my own way. I think art school can change some artists or force you to think or work in a certain way. I'm trying to do this a little more outside the box."

Her creations don't fit into the confines of a single fashion statement. "I'm a dressy-casual kind of gal," she says. "I want to be versatile. I want things to wear when I run errands or go for a cocktail after work."

Continuing To Create
Her designs, elegant and casual at the same time, find an eager market in Texas, where we bend fashion rules to fit our ways. Leah likes that attitude, and she loves Dallas. "It's got space, a metropolitan feel, and a Southern appeal to me," she says. "My friends back in Michigan and Arizona say, ‘I never thought that you would have a little bit of a drawl.' When I talk on the phone to my sister in Nashville, things really start slowing down."

Meanwhile, jewelry fills both her days and her dreams at night. She won't run out of ideas soon. "I don't rack my brain to figure out what I am going to do. I just do," she says.

"Dreaming of Creating Jewelry" is from the December 2006 issue of Southern Living.